"The best launch game!"

One of the greatest game series game series of all time is Castlevania. There have been a mass of games on multiple platforms. Now, the series makes its debut on the Game Boy Advance.

Graphics-The Game Boy Advance shows its power by giving us a portable Castlevania that looks just as good (if not better) than the PlatStation game. The characters are well animated and even though they are small, they all have an animated face instead of a tan dot on the screen. The backgrounds take the cake in this game. They are magnificent. As your player falls, the background scrolls along with you in perfect clarity. My only gripe is that the character movements are not animated well and can look choppy.

Gameplay-Outside of the responsive controls (which can be frustrating when running) the game plays very well. Previous Castlevania titles have suffered from getting too easy of too hard late in the game. C:CotM, however, maintains difficulty until the last two bosses (good luck).

Story-Nintendo has suffered, over the past few years, by having very boring plot lines. Castlevania brings an adventure game that has a story, unlike many adventure games such as Zelda which just involve you slashing the crap out of creatures while seemingly accomplishing nothing. There is a conversation with nearly every boss that advances the story along.

Sound-This is a true testament to the sound abilities of the GBA. The headphone jack on the old Game Boy was never used because there was nothing good to hear in the game. C:CotM has a great soundtrack and sound effects as well. Even without the headphones, everything sounds crisp and realistic.

Replay-There are 4 modes of play (ex.Beat the game under “Vampire Killer” and you will get a password to start another game as “Magician”) and eight save slots encourage people to play over and over again.

Rating-This game gets a Teen rating from the ESRB. There is animated violence and some blood. Most creatures catch on fire once dead and the characters utter the word “hell” several times.

Buy or Rent-Buy. Everybody seems to like this game. I bought it even though i had never played any of its predecessors and I loved it. After five days, i had only completed 5% of the map and only beat one of the 9 bosses.